The present invention relates to a beverage supply device in which a beverage material and a diluting liquid are discharged into a cup, mixed and supplied.
Heretofore, in this type of beverage supply device, a system is adopted in which a syrup (a beverage material) stored in a storage vessel such as a tank and a diluting liquid such as water and/or carbonated water are discharged from a nozzle to a cup, mixed in the cup and supplied (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-335541). Flavor cards on which names, photographs or illustrations of beverages to be supplied are described are attached to a front surface of the beverage supply device, and a customer selects the beverage with reference to the flavor cards.
In addition, inherent information such as a dilution ratio of the syrup and a gas (carbon dioxide) volume of the carbonated water for each beverage and a discharge time of the syrup and the diluting liquid for each cup size has heretofore been set (manually input) using a keyboard during installing of the beverage supply device and during changing of the beverage (flavor). Therefore, in a case where a large number of types of beverages are supplied, much time has to be consumed for the setting. Moreover, wrong setting might be performed.
Moreover, several types of amounts of beverages to be supplied can usually be selected in accordance with cup sizes such as S, M and L. Heretofore, the cup size has been selected by pressing a selection button. However, since much trouble is required for an operation, much time is lost during busy times. Moreover, the beverage has accidentally overflowed owing to a wrong operation.